Northbound to Orlando

As I drive to the airport from work, I’m excited. Today’s adventure takes us to Kissimmee (KISM), which is just southwest of one the 3 major airports in Florida- Orlando McCoy. It’s not unusual to be dodging airline traffic on the way to the Orlando TRACON. We’re flying my favorite airplane in the fleet- 01A. I’ve long enjoyed flying this plane, because everything works more or less the way it should. No need to say “we’ll just make do” in this airplane, since it’s well taken care of. I haven’t flown it for a while though. I recently finished my instrument training, and I liked to leave that plane for other students going on cross country flights, so today will be the first time in a few months.

I arrive at the flight school and start chatting with the staff. It’s hard to find a nicer group of people. In a few minutes, my flying pal turns up. He’s in the US to build a few hundred hours. I like flying with him. Even though we’ve only done a few flights, he seems like a pretty good pilot. There is one caveat though- English is not his first language, so we have to be extra careful with our communication so there is no misunderstanding. The good thing is that (unlike some of the other pilots I’ve flown with) he acknowledges his weakness and will normally let me talk to ATC if he gets confused.

Preflight complete, the plane is in top shape, and we get the clearance and start taxiing to the runway. The PNF does the taxi as I set up the GPS. He’s forgotten to adjust his seat and visibility is a little difficult for him, so I keep an eye on how things are going. There’s a King Air on the ramp who will be taxiing to our runway. ATC asks if he’ll be ready to go when reaching the runway. Since the pilot says yes, and we’ll have to do an engine run, we’re told to give way to the twin turboprop. He moves onto the taxiway and promptly starts taxiing at 1.25 knots, sometimes stopping to watch the grass grow. AAAARRRGGGHHHH!

A few minutes later, all our checklists are complete, and we’re cleared for takeoff. As we line up on the runway, I do a brief mental checklist. Cleared for takeoff, I smoothly advance the throttle to full power and off we go. Engine instruments are all in the green and the plane is accelerating normally. We rotate, and I immediately need to add a bit more rudder to maintain runway heading, as assigned.

Until now, I have done all of the radio work. The PNF is reluctant to use the radio because of his weakness. I tell him that the only way to improve is to practice, so I want him to start talking to ATC. We come up with a plan to help him with his RT skills. This is a pretty important thing to do. Firstly, as an aspiring airline pilot, he needs to ensure that his aviation English is up to speed. Unless you’re flying into some remote landing strip in the middle of nowhere, the default language used in ATC communication will be English. Secondly, having the non-flying pilot talk to ATC keeps both pilots in the loop, and so situational awareness is enhanced- you can never have too much situational awareness in the crowded skies over south Florida. ATC vectors us up the south east coast to stay clear of the jet traffic. As we pass Fort Lauderdale international, we are in and out of clouds, climbing through 4000ft.

With Palm Beach approach, we are told turn to heading 360 to intercept the V531 airway. “Um, we are on a heading of 360”. I understand the controller’s confusion. The wind is causing our track to be some 20 degrees west of our heading. We’re flying almost parallel to the airway, and aren’t going to intercept it for some distance, so ATC clears us to proceed direct BAIRN, a waypoint pretty close to the destination. We put that into the GPS and turn towards the fix. I adjust the heading to correct for the wind.

Closer to the destination, I check the weather. Conditions favor an easterly landing, so I brief the GPS approach to runway 6, which is good because it’s a short taxi to the FBO, where fuel price is a relatively cheap $3.15 per gallon. Around now, It’s time to turn on the instrument lights. I rotate the dial, but all the instruments are still in the dark. I go to full intensity, but still nothing. Great. I’m about to fly an approach at night with no instrument lighting. I’m starting to get pissed, but I try not to lose sight of the big picture- I still have to safely navigate to the ground. I pull out a flashlight and have the PNF hold it in position. Becaue of the shadows, it’s sub-optimal, but it’ll have to do.

As we pass the waypoint depicting the start of the approach, I put on the foggles to block my view outside the plane. This is one of the “T-approaches” where a 90 degree turn is required to intercept the final approach course. It’s a fun challenge to properly time the turn to final, because you don’t want to overshoot. I’m paying careful attention to the groundspeed and track. I overshoot by a little, but not too much, so I’m soon back on course. Now that I have an accurate groundspeed for the final approach, I can refine the rate of descent required to achieve a normal glidepath to the runway.

Unfortunately, a problem I’ve been trying to ignore for the entire flight is finally proving too much to handle. The course deviation indicator on the GPS (that shows us how far off course we are) is now oscillating wildly now that the unit sensitivity has been increased for the approach phase. I’m trying to fly a smooth approach, but it’s getting ridiculous. I elect to remove the hood and continue visually, as I see no need to subject myself and the PNF to the stress associated with a defective indicator.

The wind is fairly strong and again and I elect to land with 20 degrees of flaps. As we cross the fence, I wait for the landing light to illuminate the ground so I can better judge my height in the darkness. I wait some more- nothing. Great. The landing light is inoperative. Nothing can be done about it now. I just have to make do with the illumination provided by the runway lights that appear to be set to low intensity. I try my best, and we settle onto the runway with a safe, but inelegant thud. I am not amused.

As we taxi to the parking spot in the darkness, I make a mental note to write up all the maintenance discrepancies on this flight. When did all these things go wrong with the star aircraft in the fleet? The tower informs us that the clearance back home is available on request. We plan to be back in the air within half an hour, sans landing and instrument lights. I think that it’s going to be an interesting ride back south.